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One point to keep in mind regarding Israeli bonds: how difficult it might be to redeem them. I was executor on a will and had to hire attorneys in Israel as well as my attorney in the U.S. because of all the paperwork needed to cash in these bonds. It got very expensive and took a long time. Maybe t...

To some extent, vinyl is coming back -- some current artists are actually releasing albums in that format again. The sound of records is warm and luscious, and there's room for wonderful cover art. Turntables are still for sale, including some which allow you to transfer them to your computer as MP3...

We're all really renting for the most part anyway in the larger scheme of things! Though, of course, you might want to pass ownership of a house on to another generation or a spouse. In a house ownership situation your payments are building up equity, whereas rent payments just go to your landlord a...

I would appreciate if someone could tell me how to turn off automatic suggestions for past websites in Firefox. While sometimes it is helpful to be reminded of past places one has visited, I'm finding it is really very distracting when I'm starting to type in a "c" and have listings for Cn...

I think that in a worst case scenario, hearing that say, Vanguard has been hacked and/or you can't log into your account on their website for some reason, you will feel somewhat better if you can still access your Fidelity accounts. Or vice versa. Actually a worst case scenario would be if both were...

Andrew Tobias in his classic book "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" makes a really good point. Stock markets of different countries move up and down somewhat independent of each other. A U.S. investor in 1929 who was wise enough to place 50% in foreign stocks would have needed o...

I bought on two different occasions foam memory pillows at a department store (Lord & Taylor, then Macy's); however, while I was getting used to the feel of them after a while, they had a terrible smell to them. The instructions told me to air them out for a while, and I did for at least a week,...

If you do get renter's insurance, pay a bit extra and get the replacement value option. Otherwise, the insurance company will only pay the depreciated value (or what they think it is) of your property. The replacement value option will pay for what it actually costs to replace your property at today...

With what banks are paying (like almost nothing), traditionally folks in higher tax brackets have done well in municipal bonds. But there have been times (lately) when even folks in the lowest tax brackets would do better to have some municipal bonds; you could see this by comparing the taxable and ...

Here's a link to Mssrs. Clements and Zweig being interviewed by Consuelo Mack about retirement planning. Very interesting, especially since these are two of the best financial writers in the business, and they are quite in the Boglehead tradition. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2014/04/on-investing-jo...

Jonathan Clements' "The Little Book of Main Street Money" - small book packed with great information on investing and other financial and life matters pertaining to personal finance Another nod to Andrew Tobias' "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" - very funny book as we...

I don't think it's ever going to reach anywhere near 100% of people investing in the stock market totally indexing their money because good ol' greed and fear moves the market while people buying and holding will tend to reap benefits for not panicking and holding on. But since there is a definite m...

I once worked for some place where I had brought in some food from a take-out place, ate some and found later in the evening that the remainder was missing from the refrigerator. I walked into a room where a number of people were and announced that it's a shame that someone might have finished my fo...

A number of books say that experiences (and memories of them) are many times more treasured than possessions. So, depending upon where you are located, I would suggest getting tickets to a great live show or musical performance and/or treat yourself to a great meal in a beautiful restaurant where yo...

My friend told me that she had recently agreed to sell her co-op in Manhattan for what sounded like a good sum, not long after an open house. However, she mentioned that her real estate broker had pressured her and her husband to accept this one person's offer. However, the agent also mentioned ther...

Just wondering for record-keeping purposes for IRS and for when I start actually making withdrawals from my various Roth IRA accounts, how long do I have to keep papers saying I partially converted such amount (or made contributions) to a Roth? I mean, my accounts at the financial institutions like ...

I've subscribed to "Money" for a number of years -- one thing I'm happy about is I believe that it led me to the Boglehead's site - first over at Morningstar and then here. You can sometimes get it by redeeming frequent flyer miles; although when my last subscription was expiring, they off...

I have a whole list of them that I made which I sent to cheer up a relative who was recovering from cancer surgery to watch (he survived). Here are some that haven't been mentioned: Ruthless People - Danny DeVito, Bette Midler The In-Laws (original) - Peter Falk, Alan Arkin Where’s Poppa w/George Se...

Jonathan Clements' "The Little Book of Main Street Money: 21 Simple Truths that Help Real People Make Real Money" is a small book with lots of great ideas about investing, saving money and happiness. Mr. Clements was the personal finance columnist at the "Wall Street Journal" for...

I'm in NYC. I'm thinking of cutting the cord from Time Warner Cable from their cable tv, but they have just announced that they are raising the rates for standard (highest level) stand-alone internet service to about $55/ month, almost doubling it from what I'm getting as part of my current cable/in...

The negative convexity of Mortgage Backed Securities in TBM are part of it as well. More derivative than bond, they are a method mortgage bankers use to externalize losses onto investors. When interest rates go up, MBS prices drop like long-term bonds. Down, their prices rise slowly or not at all. ...

My gym has a fairly small pool; there is an elastic attachment which allows swimmers who want to swim laps continuously without having to keep turning around. You might want to experiment with that contraption at another pool to see if you would be ok or bored with swimming basically in place before...

One of the greatest of all musicals is an early film called "Love Me Tonight" starring Maurice Chevalier, Jeanette McDonald and Myrna Loy, with the first original score for the movies written by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, with classic songs like "Isn't It Romantic", "L...

I don't trade very much, but I'll take your word for it if something needs to be done in that regard; I'm actually much more of a buy-and-holder, so my whines are more limited in scope. :) Relax, you sound like you could use a glass of wine yourself. It's not a big deal for Vanguard to hide the acco...

I would rather that they express in percentages next to the amount of NAV in dollars and cents how much a fund went up or down that day. In other words, for instance, that Total Stock Index went up $0.20 (+0.10%), etc. rather than just the dollar (or cents) amount without the context of how much of ...

I think most Bogleheads probably haven't signed up for margin accounts. I think what wiped out a lot of people were margin calls from their brokers telling them to ante up some more money into their accounts to get up to the level agreed upon; since most everything was going down, down, down, the br...

"Wall Street" has a vested interest in making things sound very complicated so they can sell you their services and products at much higher rates than are necessary. You can tell your students that anything that they can't understand isn't worth investing in. They can, with a diversified p...

Jason Zweig and Jonathan Clements are my two of my favorite personal finance writers. I have clipped (and now scanned) quite a few of their columns over the years, because they just make a lot of sense and more importantly, seem genuinely interested in helping individual investors. Clements especial...

Zimmer was fired the other day from Men's Wearhouse. I realize that Mr. Bogle wasn't quite fired, but he was pretty much ousted from the company he started. It just struck me as I was reading the news that Mr. Bogle came to mind as having gone down this road before.

At this point in time, I would mainly use a money market fund as a way-station for some cash at hand for when I wanted to purchase a stock or bond fund "on sale" (and/or as part of one's asset allocation plan). If you have Prime Money Market at Vanguard, for instance, if you placed your on...

Lots of wonderful places to visit in Costa Rica. I'd say near Manuel Antonio Park, the closest town being Quepos might be a possibility. It's very beautiful with lots monkeys, bird-watching, beaches, and there is sailing nearby, horseback riding; I think you can make arrangements for ziplines and ot...

Taylor, I wouldn't discourage this person with all those quotes. Yes, they are correct. But, it's not like he is seeing some fund with a 1, 2, or 5-year record only. Wellington was created right before the 1929 crash and has weathered bull and bear markets and other market crashes. It is indeed acti...

Wasn't the character of Bulldog on the tv show "Frasier" based on Jim Cramer to some extent? Even though Bulldog was a sports radio announcer, his on-air tactics and over the top persona, including sound effects, were very similar to Cramer's.

There are at least two previous threads on the topic you should be able to find with a forum search. It doesn't seem likely that a new thread would be useful. I read one of them, and it got a bit more complex than I want to read. I want a simplified version; someone once said something to the effec...

Could someone please explain what this so-called currency is? What can people supposedly buy with it? It sounds to me like some over-hyped sleight of hand, but it is being discussed more often on some sites. I could be wrong, but my gut feeling says avoid and run away.

Sorry for your loss. I'll only address the part about what to do with IRA money -- especially if it was from a regular IRA, you would want to put that into an Inheritance IRA. Make sure it is a direct transfer from its current place to the new one, and be sure it is titled as ["your name" ...

I was looking of one of the few charts in Andrew Tobias' excellent book "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need" which shows that prime and other interest rates in the early 1980s (due to apparently rampant inflation) were like 12%-15% or higher. Did they get that high by ever increasi...

Does anyone know when women were finally allowed to inherit real estate and money in the UK? I don't know if inheriting real estate and other items (like securities and cash) were treated separately. Besides "Downtown Abbey", many famous novels like "Sense and Sensibility" and &q...

This may be somewhat basic in some respects, but it does have some very good ideas on cutting costs, saving money, investing and so forth. You can click on whatever chapter you like, as some clearly cover more advanced topics. I thought you might want to have a look and pass it along it you like. Th...

Play some LPs -- I held on to mine and ones I inherited from my folks. There are turntables for sale, even ones which will convert them to MP3s. The sound is rich and warm (even if they sometimes skip and get stuck); even some new artists are releasing LPs again. With MP3s and other compacted files,...

Anyone else think it's actually rather good that the market is down on a day that funds are giving out shares for capital gains, dividends and interest? It always seems like we're getting more shares at a bargain price. Of course, it helps if prices go up in the long run!

I've been twice and love Costa Rica. Check out the tours given by caravan.com which are all-inclusive and very affordable. Even if you decide you want to do CR on your own, reading the descriptions of where they go and some of the sights will give you some ideas. The second time I went more or less ...

You could possibly take dance classes or private dance lessons. Ballroom, swing, and Latin dances could be learned with private lessons; they are hot again as shows like "Dancing with the Stars" are top-rated. Also classes in things like tap dance (which require special shoes), jazz and ot...

I think if I ever meet Mr. Tobias, I would love to be able to say to him, "COME OOOOOOONNNNNNNN, WILLOWWWWW" * *Referring to one of his hilarious stories in his book about his bet on a horse-race. It's a really funny and useful book, and it has indeed been updated a bit in the 2011 version.

I believe that the display of "Balances and Holdings" is too cluttered now. I don't really see the need to have the fund and account #s of each of the holdings visible. Certainly it should be available if you click on the name of the fund or something like that, but I think having these lo...